Arnim Zola
(Formerly) * * |gender = Male |age = 112 |DOB = 1905 |DOD = |clearance = |IDno = 33327AGNNSLAU |title = Doctor |affiliation = * (Formerly) * * * (Undercover) *Shadow Council |movie = *''Captain America: The First Avenger'' *''Captain America: The Winter Soldier'' *''Captain America: Civil War'' *''Avengers: Endgame'' (mentioned) |oneshot = |tv series = *''Agent Carter'' *''Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'' |web series = |game = |comic = *''Captain America: First Vengeance'' *''Captain America: The First Avenger Adaptation'' *''Captain America: Civil War Prelude'' |actor = Toby Jones |voice actor = André Sogliuzzo |status = Alive (Original Timeline) Alive (Ultron Timeline) Deceased (Steve Timeline) Alive (Loki Timeline) Alive (Non-Thanos Timeline) }}Arnim Zola was a Swiss scientist who was working for HYDRA before, during, and after World War II. Originally an employee of the Nazi Sturmabteilung, in 1934 he was recruited by Johann Shmidt to become a lead scientist for Schmidt's HYDRA organization. During the war, he designed many advanced weapons to aid HYDRA in its quest for world domination. Despite being captured by the Allies shortly before Schmidt's defeat in 1945, he was offered a position in S.H.I.E.L.D., the newly formed peacekeeping organization, and he used that opportunity to secretly rebuild HYDRA. When Zola received a fatal diagnosis in 1972, he transferred his mind into a complex computer system. His "brain" was destroyed when he caused missiles to be sent to Camp Lehigh, where he was stalling Captain America and Black Widow. However, it is revealed that downloaded a copy of his artificial intelligence to an android body that he built during World War II, in which his consciousness survived and transferred himself into the body, allowing him a form of immortality. He continued on as one of HYDRA's great leaders and created Dimension Z. Biography Rebuilding HYDRA Meeting Doctor Fennhoff One year after the war, Arnim Zola was serving his sentence in a prison in the United States of America. One day, he was given the Leviathan scientist Sebastian Fennhoff, the father of Johann Fennhoff as a cellmate when Fennoff's attempts to destroy Howard Stark were stopped by Peggy Carter and the SSR. Since Fennhoff mouth was muzzled so that he could not use his power, Zola requested that he write down exactly how his power worked. Corrupting S.H.I.E.L.D. In the aftermath of World War II, the United States of America started Operation Paperclip, a program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States and deny their scientific expertise and knowledge to the Soviet Union. As part of the operation, Zola was recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D., the peacekeeping organization taking over from the Strategic Scientific Reserve. However, the leaders of S.H.I.E.L.D. were unaware that they were in fact growing a parasite and using his new position within S.H.I.E.L.D, Zola secretly was able to re-create HYDRA completely undetected. Having learned from HYDRA's failures during World War II, Zola and his fellow operatives set out to create a world so chaotic that humanity would one day sacrifice its own freedom to ensure its security rather than having to take that freedom away by force. Creating the Winter Soldiers Using S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources, Zola continued his experiments on Bucky Barnes with other doctors to turn him into HYDRA's secret weapon/assassin. Zola also managed to build an entire computer system which his mind was uploaded into as an artificially intelligent user interface. By 1970, Zola was working on Camp Lehigh. Though Zola's body died in 1972 after receiving a terminal diagnosis, his mind continued to live in cyberspace, where he was able to provide easy passage into the agency for HYDRA sleeper agents that either managed to escape justice during the war or were corrupted from within. 21st Century Attack on Camp Lehigh Two years after the Battle of New York, Donald Birch, a senior S.H.I.E.L.D. official who was revealed to be one of HYDRA's undercover operatives and leaders. He attempted to initiate HYDRA's new global rule by taking control of Project Insight under the noses of the World Security Council and all other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers, in their efforts to stop Pierce, discovered a bunker hidden beneath Camp Lehigh where the mainframe containing Zola's downloaded consciousness was located. Zola revealed to them HYDRA's plans for Project Insight, its infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. and its long history with continuing to create chaos across the modern world. However, the entire time he was, in fact, stalling until HYDRA could attack. Shortly thereafter, Romanoff learned of Zola's deception and they attempted to escape, only for Zola to lock them inside. Moments later, the bunker was attacked and destroyed in an attempt to kill Rogers and Romanoff, with Zola's mainframe being destroyed in the explosion. In the Shadows After the failure of Project Insight, resulting Donald Birch's death at the hands of Nick Fury and the major blows to HYDRA's operations, Zola remained in the shadows, leaving the world to believe he was dead. His conscious was placed in a robotic body that he built and joined the Shadow Council, a society founded by Aloysius Thorndrake. Creating Dimension Z Personality A man of dubious morality, Dr. Zola was one of the most infamous scientific minds on the planet. There was no crime he wasn't willing to commit if that could help him in his scientific experiments. Despite his amorality, Dr. Zola wasn't sadistic, evident by the shock and fear he often displayed towards Red Skull's actions and megalomania. Zola's loyalty to HYDRA seemed to be slightly reluctant during World War II, although after being captured by Captain America and following the war, Zola was key to the survival and re-creation of the organization showing that he had become frantically loyal to HYDRA's goals and was willing to do anything to see those goals accomplished by creating world chaos, leading to the deaths of millions. Zola no doubt had a particular hatred of Captain America as he sacrificed himself in order to ensure that Captain America and Black Widow were obliterated in a missile strike by HYDRA. He seemed to be somewhat cowardly during the war, following HYDRA out of fear and willing to keep himself alive in a machine, although when death came he was willing to accept since he was "out of time." Abilities *'Master Scientist': Arnim Zola was the greatest scientist amongst those who worked for the Third Reich, and later HYDRA. He was interested both in technology and genetics, though he preferred making the new weapons to aid the Axis in world conquest instead of enhancing human bodies to the peak of human perfection. *'Master Engineer': Zola designed many weapons years ahead of his time. From his early experiments designing Exo-skeletons and battle tanks, to the breakthroughs he made once he was able to collect the energy of the Tesseract, Zola had a natural talent for designing advanced weapons systems. Equipment *'Computer System': With S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources, Zola was able to build an entire computer system which his mind was uploaded into as an artificially intelligent user interface. Though Zola's body died in 1972, his mind continued to live in cyberspace. By the 2010s, though decades old, the computers were still operational. Category:Artificial Intelligence Category:Deceased Characters - Steve Timeline Category:Doctors Category:Humans Category:HYDRA Leaders Category:Males Category:Robots Category:Scientists Category:S.H.I.E.L.D. Consultants Category:Villains